I Win

I win!! I feel the need to do a victory lap around the apartment. Maybe even around the block. I made a near perfect batch of macarons to serve at the most recent bridal shower I attended. I ate enough of them myself that I should probably extend that victory lap a few miles...

I had the feet, I had the cake-like interior with almost no air pocket, I had the shiny smooth shells, and for the VERY first time, they popped right off the baking sheet. I felt great, I was elated, I was feeling pretty good about myself, then the next pan exploded. Oh well, I will always have the memory of that first pan to cling to.

What did I do differently this time? Well a few things. First and foremost, I went back to the basics. I made plain ol' almond macarons. No other nut mixtures, no fruit powder, just egg whites, almond meal, sugar, and powdered sugar. That's it. No fancy stuff (well except for a bit of hot pink food coloring). This helped to rule out any inconsistencies that may have been caused by said additions. 

Secondly, I baked one pan at a time. I put an empty pan on in the lower third of the oven, put the macs in the top third oven the oven for the first 10 minutes. Then I took the empty pan out, and put the macs in the bottom third. This, I think, allowed the heat to the bottom of the pan be a little gentler for the first half of baking (thus not cracking/exploding shells) but still allowing the strong heat from the bottom for the second half of cooking to fully bake the guts of the cookie, achieving the cake-like interior. This is purely hypothesis, further testing and tasting may be needed. I think my neighbors and co-workers will be just fine with that. 

As soon as I figured this out, I went straight for the chocolate macarons. These are still pretty basic on the spectrum of never-ending macaron flavors. Just substituting a few tablespoons of powdered sugar for a few tablespoons of cocoa powder created lovely deep chocolate cookies. 

For the fillings this time, I used a dark chocolate ganache, a vanilla butter-cream, and blackberry preserves. The jam filled ones were actually my favorite. I only made them since the groom is lactose intolerant, but I sure am glad I did. 

Plain ol' Hot Pink Macarons

adapted from Tartelette

90 grams egg whites (aged, loosely covered at room temperature for 24 hours)

200 grams powdered sugar

25 grams granulated sugar

110 grams almond meal (I used Bob's Red Mill, but you can grind your own almonds as well)

a dab of gel food coloring (or a teaspoon of powdered food coloring)

In your food processor, combine the powdered sugar and almond meal, and pulse a few times to combine. Pour into a small bowl and set aside.

In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites on medium-high speed until foamy, then gradually add the sugar and beat until a nice glossy meringue forms. This should take a minute or two on a medium high speed. Tartelette says it should look like shaving cream, I'd take her word for it, she is the master.

Transfer egg whites into a large bowl, add half of the powdered sugar/almond mixture, and your food coloring. With a large spatula, quickly fold the egg whites over themselves to let some of the air out, combining with the almond mixture. Add the rest of the almond mixture and fold gently until your batter has come together, no more than 50 strokes or so. You want a batter that if you let a clump fall off your spatula, it will spread and meld back into itself within ten seconds. If it stands up and does not spread at all, give the batter a few more folds until it does. My best advice here is to test it frequently when you think you are starting to get close to the end product, this will help you to not over mix your batter.

Line two rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper or silpats, and spoon batter into a piping bag fitted with a plain round tip (one with a fairly large opening). Pipe 1 1/5 inch rounds, evenly spaced, onto your baking sheet. Once all the macarons have been piped, pick up your baking sheet and drop it from about 6 inches above the counter. This impact will bring any air bubbles to the top of the macarons, and help them spread evenly. Do this a few times, then let the macarons sit at room temperature for about an before baking. This will create those nice shiny shells.

After the shells have rested, preheat oven to 300 degrees, place on rack in the top third and one in the bottom third of your oven. Bake one pan at a time, starting on the top shelf with an empty pan on the bottom shelf, and after about 10 minutes remove the empty pan and move the shells to the bottom shelf. bake for another 8-10 minutes (depending on the size of your shells), or until fully cooked.

Honestly the best way to tell if they are done, is to sacrifice one of you shells, pop it off the parchment and break it open. If it is gooey inside, bake for another few minutes, if it is done, take them out. If they are overdone, not to worry, after filling them and letting them age in the refrigerator for a day or two, they will most likely still be delicious.

Dark Chocolate Macarons

Same as above, omitting the food coloring and substituting 2 tablespoons of dark cocoa powder for 2 tablespoons of the powdered sugar. You can mix the cocoa powder in with the nut mixture before processing. 

Dark Chocolate Ganache

1 cup dark chocolate, chopped
1/2 heavy whipping cream

Place chocolate into a small glass or metal bowl. In a small saucepan over medium low heat, bring the cream just to a simmer and then pour over the chocolate. Leave the cream/chocolate mixture alone for two minutes. Gently whisk cream and chocolate together until smooth. Let cool until spreading consistency, about 5-10 minutes.

Vanilla Swiss Meringue Butter-cream
from Tartelette

1 cup of sugar
4 egg whites
3 sticks of unsalted butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a small metal or glass bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water, whisk together the egg whites and the sugar, whisking constantly until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture resembles marshmallow cream, about 3-4 minutes. Pour the mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat on medium speed until the mixture has cooled a bit and has formed a thick, shiny meringue, about 5 minutes. Change over to the paddle attachment and beating on a medium speed, add the butter one tablespoon at a time, mixing until completely incorporated after each addition. After all the butter has been added, mix in the vanilla, then beat on medium-high speed for 8 minutes, until frosting is light and fluffy and smooth.


Fill macarons with about a tablespoon of butter-cream, ganache, or preserves, and refrigerate for at least 24 hours. This will fully develop the cookie, making them moist and cake-y, and most importantly, delicious. 

Don't tell the Girl Scouts

Now that I have finally emerged out of my cookie coma, I can finally finish posting about all the Christmas goodies I made this year. This holiday season was a whirlwind of foodie extravaganzas. There were so many amazing meals, and delicious desserts, but most importantly I was able to get home to Minnesota and spend time (mostly cooking and eating) with my friends and family. I think they were just happy because I brought lots of cookies home with me.

Ask any of my roommates from college how much I love Samoas Girl Scout Cookies (or caramel de-lites) and they will probably roll their eyes. I have been known to hide the purple boxes in my room so that no one will steal them. It's just that there aren't that many in the box, they trick you and use one of those vacuum formed plastic thingies (yes that is the technical term, and yes as an industrial designer I should know the actual term) to space them out, and plus, they only come around once a year.

Not anymore. A great blog, Once Upon a Plate, posted a homemade version of these coveted cookies. I have had it bookmarked for a while now, and didn't think I was going to get to it this year, but after I screwed up a batch of caramels, (completely stuck to the pan after I neglected to line it with parchment paper) I figured it was a good excuse to make the 'samoas'. With a pan of homemade caramel and my hand mixer, I embarked on probably the most tedious kitchen endeavor I have ever taken on, and this is coming from the girl who has made homemade bagels and teeny tiny stuffed pastas in recent history.

But oh man...are they good. They don't taste exactly like the real thing, and I will definitely be purchasing copious amounts of the originals when spring comes around and 'Girl Scout Cookie Season' kicks off. I think these are actually a different animal altogether with the dark chocolate and the homemade salted caramel. They are rich, VERY rich. This is a good thing for a person like me (a person with portion control issues) as it limits me to one cookie per sitting. Although, I have recently discovered that they are best straight out of the freezer, and that whole 'one per sitting' rule no longer applies.

Homemade Samoas

(or Carmel De-Lites, depending on where in the country you live)

adapted from Once Upon a Plate

Makes about 4 dozen cookies

There are three main steps to this cookie, and you will see very quickly why this is a tedious process. First you make the buttery cookies that are buried beneath the caramel coconut goodness. I made mine with holes in the center this time, but if I make these again, I will skip that step. I ended up filling the holes with the coconut mixture, and was too lazy to re-poke the centers out. As I see it, if there is no hole, that just means there is more cookie. :-) Second step is to spread the coconuts caramel mixture on each one of these teeny cookies. Then comes the chocolate dipping/drizzling. The last part is probably the most difficult: waiting until they set before you pop them into your mouth.

Cookie Base

1 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar

2 cups all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

up to 2 tablespoons milk

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a large bowl using a hand mixer (or a stand mixer), cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in a few additions, beating on a low speed. Add the vanilla, and just enough milk to get the dough to come together, without being sticky (I only needed 1 tablespoon). Gather the dough together in a ball and divide into three equal parts.

In between two sheets of parchment paper, roll one of the pieces of dough out with a rolling pin until it is 1/4 inch thick. Using a 1.5" round cookie cutter, cut out circles and place them on a parchment or silicone lined baking sheet.

If you want you can punch a hole out of the center of each round using the end of a large straw, or you can just skip this all together. Like I said above, if I make these again, I will not go through the trouble since it just got filled in with topping anyway.

Repeat this process until you have used all the dough, and feel free to re-roll scraps once or twice. Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes until the cookies are just lightly brown around the edges. Let cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to a wire rack to allow to cool completely.

Topping

3 cups shredded coconut (I would recommend unsweetened, but like me, if all you can find is sweetened that works just fine!)

12 ounces good quality caramels (I used a homemade batch of salted caramels)

1/4 teaspoon salt (if you are using salted caramels, you can reduce this to 1/8 teaspoon, or skip it altogether)

3 tablespoons milk

8 ounces dark chocolate, roughly chopped or broken into small pieces (if you do not like dark chocolate, feel free to use milk or bittersweet, I think the dark helped balance out the intense sweetness of this cookie, if even just a little)

Preheat oven to 300 F.

Spread coconut evenly on a rimmed baking sheet. Toast for about 20 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes or so. Keep an eye on this in the last few minutes of toasting as the sugar in the coconut can scorch very quickly once it starts turning brown. Let cool on baking sheet.

Unwrap the caramels and place in a microwave safe bowl. Add the milk and the salt, and microwave for 3-4 minutes, stopping a few times to stir the caramel.

When it is completely melted and smooth stir in the coconut in a few additions. Use your judgement here, I did not end up adding 100% of the coconut because it started to feel like it was getting a little stiff. The right ratio of coconut to caramel is key to actually being able to spread the mixture onto the cookies, if there is too much coconut, it will be nearly impossible, if there is too little coconut, the mixture won't hold up as well and will ooze off the cookie before it sets. Test the mixture out as you go, add about 3/4 of the coconut at first, test a cookie, if it is spreadable and stays on the cookie for the most part continue on with the rest of the cookies, if it starts to ooze, add a little more coconut and test again. (This is clearly a very scientific process here)

Once you get the caramel mixture to your desired consistency, spread about 2-3 teaspoons of the mixture on each cookie with a small spatula or offset spatula (I actually found my butter knife to work quite well) and place on a clean piece of parchment paper or silicone baking sheet. While you are doing this, if the mixture starts to firm up, pop the bowl in the microwave for a few seconds to re-melt the caramel. If you are getting fancy (or not being lazy) take a wide straw and re-poke the holes in the center of the cookies, again I skipped this step. More caramel = GOOD. Let cool and set up for about 10-15 minutes.

Once the caramel topping has set a bit, place the chocolate in a small bowl and heat in the microwave at 30 second intervals, stirring thoroughly in between each interval until smooth. Be careful not to scorch the chocolate. You can also use the double-boiler method (which I did) by placing a small metal or glass bowl containing the chocolate over a small sauce pan with about an inch of simmering water, and stirring continuously until melted.

This is where it becomes important that you let the caramel topping set and cool, it will help you keep a grip on the cookie while dipping. Take each cookie and dip the bottom 1/4 inch into the chocolate, and place back on the parchment paper or silicone sheet.

After all the cookies have been dipped, pour the remaining chocolate into a small Ziploc bag (or pastry bag with a small tip) and cut off a very tiny portion of the corner of the bag. Pipe the chocolate over the top of each cookie, melting more chocolate if you run out.

Now here is the tricky part: don't touch them until the chocolate has set...which takes forever when you are staring at about 48 Samoa cookies laying on your kitchen counter. Mine didn't turn out quite as pretty as the originals, but they were tasty.

Hope your holidays were spectacular!

Chai-Spiced Cookies

Let the baking extravaganza continue!

The second batch of cookies that I attempted this Christmas season worked a little better than the first, (I chilled them for a little while before popping them in the oven, which prevented spreading like the thumbprints) but when it came time to dredge them in powdered sugar, my lack of patience got the better of me. I threw them in when they were a little too hot and ended up with sort of damp, almost glazed cookies instead of the light and fluffy confectioner sugar coating that I was hoping for.

Hell, they still tasted good. Judging by the fact that I had to put them in the freezer so that I would quit eating them, I'd say they turned out just fine.

These cookies are a great alternative to your standard spice cookie, they are complex and buttery, with a dash (well more than a dash) of sweetness from the sugar coating. I highly recommend adding these to your cookie repertoire.

Chai Spiced Cookies

From Whole Foods via thekitchn.com

makes about 40 cookies

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

1/4 cup sugar

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4 cup powered sugar (confectioner's sugar)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Cream butter and sugar together in large bowl with hand mixer (or in your stand mixer, whatever floats your boat). In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, cardamom, and salt. Beat the flour mixture and the vanilla into the butter mixture just until combined.

Pinch off teaspoon-sized balls of dough and roll them into spheres, placing them 1 inch apart on a parchment or silicone lined baking sheet. If your dough is really soft and warm like mine was, pop the pans in the refrigerator for a few minutes to firm them up. This will prevent the cookies from spreading at least a little bit. Bake until light golden brown, about 15-18 minutes.

Let the cookies cool for about 5-10 minutes on the cookie sheet (this is about the point at which I ended up with sticky gooey balls so BE PATIENT). When they have cooled, but are still slightly warm, toss each cookie in the powdered sugar to coat and place on wire rack to cool completely.

Cookies will keep in an airtight container for 1-2 weeks, or in my case as long as it takes to gobble them all up.

Try to save at least a few to share for the holidays.

Cookie (Semi) Fail...

It's that time of year again. Christmas cookie time. The baking has commenced and I wish I could say that it is going swimmingly. It's not. I have had to call the mommy christmas cookie helpline twice already...and it's only the 18th. Sigh.

The past two years I have made a jam thumbprint cookie form a Emeril recipe. The cookie itself is flavored with lemon zest and juice, and the filling is homemade raspberry jam. They are amazing, and probably in my top three favorite christmas cookies ever. They were super easy to make, and turned out quite pretty looking. You would think by now I could make these with my eyes closed, but this year they just didn't go well. Instead of cute little perfectly round cookies, with a dot of jam in the center, they spread into large flat discs with jam oozing out over the sides.

Luckily they still tasted fantastic.

There is a reason I usually stick to savory foods, I kind of suck at baking. Although I suppose there could be worse things to have to practice eh?

Besides the slight mishap (maybe I need to turn down the heat in my kitchen, who knows) these cookies are absolutely delicious. They aren't super sweet, which is probably why I enjoy them so much. Now the trick is just not eating them all before Christmas gets here...

Lemon Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies

Recipe from Emeril Lagasse on foodnetwork.com

1/2 cup raspberry jam (preferably homemade, but if you aren't lucky enough to have a mom that sends you multiple jars each summer, store bought is fine)

1 tablespoon chambord or kirsch (I didn't use any this time, but I have used triple sec and creme de cassis before, any berry or citrus liqueur that you have on hand will work, I recommend NOT skipping this ingredient, it adds some nice oomph to the cookie)

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

2/3 cup sugar

2 large egg yolks

1 tablespoon lemon zest

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a small bowl, mix the jam and whatever liqueur you are using. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

In a large bowl cream the butter and sugar together with hand mixer (or if you have a stand mixer do it in there. Also, if you have a stand mixer, I am jealous of you) until light and creamy. Add the egg yolks, lemon zest, lemon juice, and vanilla and beat to combine.

In two additions, add the dry ingredient mixture and beat just until wet clumps form.

Then using your hands, gather the dough together in a ball.

Divide the dough into 4 equal parts and form 12 1-inch balls out of each of those parts. Place balls on parchment paper or silicone mat lined baking sheets, leaving 1 inch space in between each cookie.

Using a 1 teaspoon measuring spoon (a melon baller works if you have weird square shaped measuring spoons like me) make a small indent into the top of each cookie.

Fill each indent with about 1/2 teaspoon of the jam mixture.

Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Let cool on baking sheets for just a few minutes, then transfer to cooling rack.

More cookie shenanigans to come, don't worry.